THEY DISGRACED THE JERSEY...IAN BAIRD

In the long and glorious history of Heart of Midlothian, Hearts have always produced great centre-forwards. A long line of quality players like Barney Battles, Willie Bauld, Drew Busby, Jimmy Bone and Sandy Clark have worn the maroon number nine jersey. This long line came to an abrupt halt when Joe Jordan signed lan Baird from Middlesborough for £350,000 in july 1991. Yogi was certainly no cuddly bear, not by a long shot. Some people said that Yogi was meant to be a centre forward in the Joe Jordan mould. Yogi's on the pitch antics made Joe look like a saint or even a timid pussycat. He was too hard for the men of Paisley (he was sent off twice there - the second time was for knocking Campbell Money into next week - literally!) The ever-so-slightly mental one was obviously a bit disappointed at not getting on the end of a cross but instead of pulling out, Yogi decided to keep going heading for the ball which was now safely in Moneys hands. A couple of minutes later, Campbell Money was safely on his way to hospital.

Another favourite of Yogi's was to stand in front of an opposition player when he was taking a throw-in and stare him out. Many an opposition player fluffed his throw-in with this ploy. However Yogis favourite players were goalkeepers. Another favourite memory was when he put John Burridge into the goal instead of the ball. For all his hustling and bustling and intimidating of players, it didn't disguise it didn't disguise the plain fact the lan Baird was shite. He couldn't time his leaps. Every header was mistimed, even when there was no opposition near him. The strange thing was that Yogi headed everything, to the point where he was even seen to bury his nose in the ground on occasion to get to the ball with his head rather than use his feet.

All that aside, one of his mistimed jumps followed by one of his lunges did result in a Derby victory in 1993. Robertson crossed the ball from the left, Yogi threw himself at the ball, missed completely, but his dive had confused Budgie completely, and the ball bounced up, hit his shoulder and spun into the net. It still makes me laugh today. Yogi Baird - the biggest nutter to ever wear the much coveted maroon number 9 jersey

Big Al

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